CANARIAN COLEOPTEKA. 157 



whilst their maxillae and palpi are longer, and their legs are more 

 rohiist, — the tibiae being especially broader, much more coarselj^ spi- 

 nulose along their outer edge, and with the terminal spurs consider- 

 ably larger and stronger (that of the anterior pair being greatly de- 

 veloped, thickened, outwardly directed, and flexuose). It would ap- 

 pear to be peculiar, principally, to Mediterranean latitudes ; and the 

 species which constitute it, although variable in hue, are more or less 

 evidently adorned with transverse (though often obscure and inter- 

 rupted) fasciae. They are less strictly Dermestideous in their modes 

 of life than the true Attageni, — occurring for the most part (like 

 Anthremis) on flowers in the open country, and only occasionally 

 exhibiting the skin-infesting habits which (as in the case of the 

 normal members of the family) characterize the latter. 



Although, as has already been intimated, one of the insects de- 

 scribed below has the last joint of its male-elava enormously elon- 

 gated as in the true Attageni, I nevertheless consider this fact of but 

 slight importance, seeing that the antennae of nearly all these im- 

 mediate Dermestideous forms have their club so peculiarly modified 

 that it is hardly possible to regard even the structural features of 

 that organ as of more than specific signification ; for it is scarcely 

 too much to assert that we actually find them (within certain fixed 

 limits) differently proportioned in almost every individual species. 

 Hence the discrepancies (both specific and sexual) in the antennae of 

 the three insects here characterized (each of which possesses its own 

 exact modification) ofifer no obstacle to their being generically asso- 

 ciated ; and I have but little doubt (when their many points of agree- 

 ment, above alluded to, are duly considered) that they are strictly 

 members of a single and perfectly natural assemblage. The two 

 comprised under my latter Section have their tibiae still more robust 

 (and broader) than the representative of the former one ; but this 

 is merely a difierence in degree, and not in kind : nevertheless the 

 female tarsal pecuHarity of the T. ohtusus (which has the second joint 

 of its four posterior feet less elongated than is the case in those of its 

 males, and in those of both sexes of the other two species) is cer- 

 tainly much more remarkable. 



§ I. Corpus versus latera p*7is longissimis erectis sat dense obsitum : 

 tibice S'ublineares : tarsi in seocu fcemineo minus elongati, posteriores 

 articido 2^^° quam tertius paxdo {in sexu foemineo) longiore : anten- 

 narum articulus ultimus in maribus longissinms. 



265. Telopes obtusus. 

 T. ovalis, uiger vel fusco-niger, fulvo-cinereo-pubescens ; prothorace 



